I scrapbook because my memory will never be good enough to remember these little details.

Photography is my passion. Scrapbooking is a way for me to preserve my memories of what the pictures represent. I know that so many people are going digital with everything including scrapbooks. But for me I still want the paper, pictures, lumps and bumps (aka embellishments). I have a great group of friends that gets together every month or two for a day of scrapping and crafting. We craft, have movies playing in the back ground, eat, and enjoy the friendship. 

Scrapbooking is more than preserving pictures. I include the ticket stubs, the hand drawn artwork the kids made in school. The report cards, pieces of clothing, and anything else that helps remember the event.  The who, what, when and where are also included with the pages so that generations from now they will know me, or what was going on.

Deciding on what pictures to include

Now I take lots and lots of pictures, there is I can’t possibly include every picture in the books.  So I have to pick and choose which ones are worthy of being in the book. Even though I have been doing photography for many years I still end up with an out of focus, heads cut off, or just poor quality. So I go through the pictures of that event and pick out the ones I like the best. Most of the time I get the 4×6 standard size photo. But on very special occasions I do get different sizes just to add a focal point in the book. For example, with Michaels senior pictures and graduation I got a 8×12 picture of him in his cap and gown to be the focus of that section. With that the facing page to it, has no photo on it. It has signatures and notes from family and friends that were at his graduation party. 

Determining Each Book

I have the main books divided chronological by year. There are smaller books for special events such as big trips, concerts, and history of my ancestors. Then each of my kids has a series of books just about them from birth to high school graduation.

 I have one book that I gave my grandmother that included pictures of her, my grandfather, their children and grandchildren, their siblings and other family members. These are pictures that I collected from grandma, my mom, along with aunts and uncles. I also included a family tree of my grandparent and their 7 children, and the grandkids.  You can imagine that there are a lot of people to account for when they had 7 children, so I had to limit the number of pages for each one. The book still ended up about 3 inches thick.  I remember the day I gave it to her. Each year each side of my grandparents family holds a family reunion. On grandma’s side each year a different family member hosts the reunion.  It goes by generation. That year was her year to host, knowing that it was probably the would be her last year to host due to her Alzheimer’s so almost all of the family was there. The day after the reunion we had an open house for just our family. When I presented it to her, she sat and went page by page talking about each one, naming each person. Then she just sat and held it for a while and whenever someone else would pick it up she would have to go see what they were doing with it.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that I made her that happy.  When she passed away in 2017 I took the book back for me to keep.

How are you saving your memories?